


Don't let that towel slip, Captain

by KByrd



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-06
Updated: 2015-06-06
Packaged: 2018-04-03 05:06:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4088032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KByrd/pseuds/KByrd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Their relationship is supposed to be a secret, but maybe Steve is getting just a bit too comfortable?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't let that towel slip, Captain

“Shit! Do you know where my keys are?”

He rolls over, buries his head in the pillow, “No.”

He can hear her bustling around, slamming drawers, flinging items across the room. He sighs.

“They have to be here somewhere,” she growls.

“Just take mine.”

She snorts.

After a while, the crashing and banging dies away and Steve drags himself slowly out of bed and into the bathroom. He’s sore from yesterday’s battle, but also feeling … he takes stock … fairly buzzed and happy. Must be all those endorphins from the post-battle … um … activities. Just thinking of Maria makes him smile in a giddy school-boy kind of way. Good thing that there’s no-one here to witness his silly grin.

He takes his time, tending his bumps and cuts, he shaves, he showers …

Someone knocks firmly on the outer door and Steve wraps a towel around his waist and goes to answer.

It’s probably Maria and he gleefully considers answering the door entirely naked, but … decides that she’d probably be mad.

Still, he’s grinning when he opens the door, “What did you do, decide …? Oh.”

The woman on the other side of the door is not Maria. Her eyes go wide, travelling quickly across his chest and down ... dragging them up to his face with visible effort.

Steve tries not to blush. “Err …” He fastens the towel a little more securely around his hips.

Darcy pulls herself together quickly. “I’m going to need you to get pants on for this,” she says coolly. “Is Maria here?”

“No, she just stepped out,” Steve answers calmly, trying to pretend that all is normal. 

“There’s a briefing in the conference room,” Darcy says. She bites her lip and lets her eyes skitter over his chest once again.

“Ok,” Steve nods thoughtfully. “I’ll ah ... let Maria know.”

Darcy meets his eyes and nods. “Right. Ok. Thanks.”

He’s always admired her for her spunk and even-handedness. The story of her tasering Thor is legendary, but he’s always appreciated how well she handles the craziness of the Avengers. Alien invaders falling out of the sky? No problem. Tony wandering the halls in his underwear? Just call Pepper to get him back in bed. And now she’s caught Captain America mostly naked in Maria Hill’s apartment … Steve is tempted to ask her to keep it to herself, but he doubts that that will happen.

Instead he nods courteously, closes the door and rummages around to find his cellphone.

“Briefing in 5,” “he texts Maria

“I heard,” she answers. “See u there?”

“Yup,” he types, “btw, our secret’s out.”

“Wot u do?” she texts back.

He hates shorthand.

He considers several responses, discards them all and starts picking up the clothes strew haphazardly around the room instead. He dresses from the stash of clothes he keeps in her closet and times his arrival at the conference room to be just late enough that the briefing is underway, but he hasn’t actually missed anything.

Several people nod to him, but he doesn’t sense any undercurrent of glee or amusement. Maybe Darcy kept her news to herself. His already high opinion of her rises another notch.

The guy at the front of the room is pointing to a slide projected on the wall showing a picture of … Steve squints … an army?

Maria enters the side door with a tablet in her hand.

She doesn’t look at Steve – she never does.

Her hair is pinned up in her usual style. She looks cool and businesslike and tough as nails and Steve is sure that no-one in this room can imagine what she might look like with her guard down.

He’s momentarily distracted, remembering last night when she definitely let her hair down, both literally and metaphorically.

It takes him a moment to notice the buzz in the room. He blinks and looks around. The guy giving the briefing frowns and hesitates, looking confused.

People, mostly women, are standing and clapping, and someone even wolf whistles.

Maria looks up, scowls and then rolls her eyes.

They’re cheering her.

Steve sinks down in his chair as understanding dawns. His opinion of Darcy plummets.

Maria does the unexpected. She bows and blows imaginary kisses.

Then she glares at him. “What did you do?” she asks archly, her voice rising clear over the crowd.

Steve scowls. “Nothing,” he says mildly, feeling like a chastened student. “Answered the door in your apartment.”

There’s a long pause and he can feel the audience’s curiosity.

“Were you at least wearing pants?” she asks softly, a smile playing at her lips.

The crowd laughs and Steve climbs to his feet, deciding he’s had enough. He’s not upset, he just finds all this attention a bit much to take.

“No,” he answers, his eyes trained on her. “ ’Fraid not.”

He can hear the howls of glee from the room as he walks out, avoids the elevator and ducks into a rarely used stairwell whose entrance door is disguised as a broom closet.

 

 

  

 

 


End file.
